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Romesco Sauce combines roasted tomatoes, garlic, red peppers and chiles, almonds, and toasted bread, with herbs, spices, olive oil, and a splash of vinegar. This combination of ingredients creates an incredibly delicious sauce for seafood, pasta, vegetables, poultry, and other meats.
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What is Romesco Sauce?
It’s a thick sauce – almost like a pesto – but made with roasted tomatoes, garlic, red peppers, and chiles, plus oil, herbs and seasonings including paprika. Toasted bread and blanched almonds are used to thicken the sauce. Vinegar is added to cut the richness and lend a bright note of flavor.
All combined – Romesco is a very delicious concoction that can be served as a sauce, spread, or dip.
Romesco Origins
Romesco originated in the coastal Catalonia region of Northeastern Spain. It’s believed that fishermen in the region created ‘Salsa Romesco’ to serve with fish – but it’s fantastic slathered on a slice of toasted bread, tossed with pasta and shrimp, and it’s a wonderful sauce spooned over other seafood, chicken, or roasted vegetables.
Is Romesco really a Red Pepper Sauce?
It is technically a roasted tomato sauce, with peppers added for flavor.
In Spain, an authentic Romesco includes Spanish Nora peppers – a round “ball” pepper that is sold dried, then reconstituted in water so the pulp can be scraped out and added to the tomato and garlic sauce.
Here in America, Nora peppers are not readily available unless you have access to a Spanish foods market. (You can also find them online here). We added some reconstituted mild, dried chiles in our Romesco as a nod to the Nora peppers, plus we added some roasted red peppers for additional flavor.
One last note: Although peppers are a prominent ingredient in Romesco Sauce, this isn’t a spicy sauce by any means! It has a rich, complex flavor with sweet and smoky undertones.
Why you’ll love Romesco
- The flavors are fantastic, rich and perfectly balanced, thanks to a variety of simple ingredients that go so well together.
- You can serve Romesco in a variety of ways – a sauce, dip, or spread.
- It’s a forgiving recipe, so you can adjust the amounts of ingredients to suit your tastes and available ingredients.
Key Ingredients & Substitutions
- Tomatoes – Fresh Roma tomatoes are the best option for Romesco, as they are meaty and flavorful, especially when roasted.
- Garlic – Only freshly-peeled garlic will do here. (Don’t be tempted to use jarred garlic – the flavor isn’t the same.)
- Dried Chile Peppers – Buy Spanish Nora peppers, or mild dried Mexican chile peppers such as Ancho, California, or Poblano. These will add an earthy depth of flavor to your Romesco Sauce. Avoid hotter, spicier dried chiles unless you are looking to make a spicier version of this sauce.
- Red Bell Pepper – Roast your own or make things easier and buy jarred roasted peppers. If you roast your own, char and peel the skin off, then remove the stem and seeds.
- Almonds – This sauce uses peeled, blanched almonds – so a package of slivered almonds (unsalted) is a perfect option. Hazelnuts are another option – just note that you will need to remove the skins.
- Bread – Toasted ground bread is used to thicken this sauce, so choose a dense bread such as a baguette, ciabatta, country loaf, or sour dough.
- Parsley – Look for Italian flat-leaf parsley.
- Vinegar – The best choice for this recipe is sherry vinegar, but red wine vinegar can also be used if that’s what you have on hand.
- Spices & Seasonings – Sweet paprika, chili powder, kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- Olive Oil – Use the best quality extra virgin olive oil you can find.
Special Tools Needed
- Food Processor – To make breadcrumbs and also process the Romesco into a sauce.
- Cutting board and sharp knife
- Bowl – To soak and rehydrate the dried chiles.
- Small Sheet Tray – To roast the tomatoes and garlic.
- Oven – To toast and dry out the bread.
- Small Skillet – To dry toast the nuts
How do I make Romesco Sauce?
- Split the dried chile peppers, shake out the seeds and remove stem. Soak in boiling water to rehydrate.
- Slice the bread and place in the oven to dry and toast. Then, process to make crumbs.
- Toast the almonds in a dry skillet, then cool.
- Split tomatoes and roast until charred on both sides. Place roasted tomatoes in a strainer to drain off any liquid and cool. Discard liquid
- Coarsely chop garlic.
- Drain jarred, roasted peppers, discarding the liquid.
- In a food processor, place re-hydrated dried peppers along with toasted almonds and garlic and process until fine.
- Add roasted tomatoes and process until smooth.
- Add roasted peppers and process until smooth.
- Add parsley, spices and seasonings, vinegar, plus some of the ground toasted bread and process until smooth.
- With the motor running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil until the Romesco is smooth and emulsified. *See Cooking Tip below.
- Let the sauce sit for about an hour for the flavors to meld.
- Serve following our Pasta Romesco with Shrimp recipe, other seafood, or chicken – or smear over a toasted baguette slice as an appetizer. It’s also delicious with fresh roasted vegetables.
Tips & Tricks
- The finished Romesco Sauce should be somewhat thick like pesto and still a little grainy.
- *If you want a very smooth sauce, puree to your preferred smoothness before adding the olive oil. If olive oil is processed too long, it becomes bitter, so always add it to your sauce as the very last step.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Can I make Romesco Sauce ahead of time? Yes, this sauce can be made in advance and used as needed, much like a pesto. Once the sauce is made, the flavors will meld together better if you allow it to sit for an hour or so before using.
- How do I store leftovers? Store refrigerated in a tightly sealed container. Wisdom varies on how long refrigerated Romesco sauce will last, from 3 days to 2 weeks, but the longer it sits refrigerated, the stronger the garlic flavor will become.
- Can I freeze? Yes – For the freshest flavor, freeze what you don’t need right away in small zipper seal bags with the air squeezed out.
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Romesco Sauce
Romesco Sauce combines roasted tomatoes, garlic, red peppers and chiles, almonds, and toasted bread, with herbs, spices, olive oil, and a splash of vinegar. This combination of ingredients creates an incredibly delicious sauce for seafood, pasta, vegetables, poultry, and other meats.
Ingredients
2 Nora, Ancho, California, or Poblano dried chile peppers
1–2 thick slices of dense bread such as ciabatta, country loaf, sour dough, or baguette
6 Roma tomatoes
1/2 cup plus one tablespoon good quality extra virgin olive oil, divided
3/4 cup blanched almonds (we bought slivered almonds since they are already peeled)
1 16-ounce jar roasted red peppers, drained
3 large garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely cut up
2 tablespoons fresh Italian flat leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
2 teaspoons chili powder
3 tablespoons sherry vinegar, or red wine vinegar
Instructions
- Preheat oven or toaster oven to 350 degrees F.
- After removing seeds and stems from dried peppers, place in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Cover top and let the peppers rehydrate for at least 15 minutes, longer if possible, while you prepare the other ingredients. Once rehydrated, discard the soaking water.
- Take the slices of bread and place in the oven to bake. The baking process will dry out the bread as well as get the outside toasted. This method is preferable over just toasting the bread in a toaster. Once toasted and dried out, about 10-15 minutes, cool then place in a food processor and process to a fine crumb. You will need ½ cup of the finished crumbs for the sauce.
- Cut the tomatoes end-to-end and cut off the stem end. Lay the half slices on a small sheet tray, cut side up and brush with the one tablespoon of oil.
- Broil the tomatoes on both sides until charred and slightly blackened. Depending on your broiler, this may take ten minutes or more.
- Remove the tomatoes to a strainer and strain out and discard all liquid.
- Place the almonds in a dry skillet and dry toast over medium heat until lightly browned. Remove from heat and cool.
- Place the jarred roasted red bell peppers over a strainer and strain out and discard all liquid.
- To make the sauce, place the rehydrated dried peppers in the food processor, along with the fresh garlic and the toasted almonds and process until grainy in texture.
- Add the drained roasted tomatoes and the drained roasted red peppers and process to a paste.
- Add the parsley, salt, pepper, chili powder and paprika and process to combine.
- Add the vinegar and a half-cup only of the toasted bread crumbs and process smooth.
- With food processor running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Do not blend for too long after adding the oil or the oil will become bitter.
- Taste and season with more salt and pepper only if needed.
- At this point, the sauce is complete and does not need to be cooked. It is best however if you let it sit for an hour before using to blend the flavors.
- Simply use it as you would a pesto by tossing it in with cooked pasta, smeared on toasted baguette slices, served with roasted vegetables, or served with cooked shrimp, fish or chicken.
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This sounds amazing! I have a family member who is allergic to tree nuts. What can I substitute for the almonds or hazelnuts? The only nuts she isn’t allergic to are peanuts, pecans and pistachios. I’m looking forward to trying this recipe.
Hi Beth – I’d lean toward the pistachios as they have the mildest flavor of the three nuts you’ve listed. You’ll want to use unsalted pistachios and try to remove as much of the skin as possible – sometimes it sticks to the shell as you remove it. If it were me, I’d probably start with a lesser amount of nuts than the almonds called for in the recipe – the pistachios definitely have a different flavor than the blanched almonds. (You can always add more bread to thicken the sauce if you’d like.) Hope that helps!
Thanks, Martha! I always have a bag of the shelled pistachios in my pantry. I’m going to try this recipe this weekend and I’ll let you know how it goes.